As a long-time internet user (since 1996) I've watched the internet, particularly the World-Wide Web and email, grow and change over 12 years. Email has gone from a cool new toy that hardly anyone uses to a critical part of our daily lives. Along with that came the spammers, hackers, and phishers.

What is Phishing? Phishing is the practice of creating replica web sites and sending emails pretending to be legitimate communications from businesses directing the recipient to the fake site to fool them into providing personal information, such as account numbers, user ids, or passwords.

Phish emails appear to be legitimate. The "from" address will look like it came from the real business. The body of the email will be a forgery of emails from the business. Links will appear to refer to the real business' web site.

How do you protect yourself from Phishing? First, never, ever open an email unless it's from someone you know or a business you deal with. If you receive an email you are certain is not legitimate, delete it immediately. Do not ever reply to Phish emails.

Be suspicious of emails if:

• it directs you to a url where you must log in
• it asks you to update or verify your personal information by clicking on a url
• it does not refer to you by name
• it warns you of problems with your account
• it requests your help transferring funds
• it notifies you of winning a lottery you never heard of

A good general rule of thumb: if you receive an email from a business you deal with that asks you to log into your account DO NOT use the link in the email (most legitimate emails will not include a link for this purpose). Instead go directly to the business' web site by entering the url into your browser.

You can read more about Phishing on Microsoft's web site in this article on Safe Browsing.